Sunday, November 18, 2012

Culture shock awaits Somalilanders

- Two years ago, fashion designer Ayan Hussein left the high-end stores of Britain's capital for a stab at promoting fashion that was in line with Muslim tradition in her Somali homeland. But she and her family, along with thousands of other Somalis who have returned in the hope of drumming up business or out of nostalgia, often find themselves facing culture shock.

"It is not the same as in London... not the slightest," says Hussein's 18-year-old son Guled, who does not speak a word of Somali.

"There is dust everywhere. You can't skate here," he says in impeccable English. It is Somaliland, an autonomous territory of around four million people in the north of Somalia along the Gulf of Aden, that has played host to many returnees in recent years. The region, which declared self-rule in 1991, has provided a haven of relative peace and stability in a land otherwise known for decades of brutal war.